by Gloria Cook
He glanced at the rough-wood bed, anticipating the company of the prostitute he’d arranged to join him after this meeting. She’d been in here not long ago. Her musky perfume lingered in the stuffy confines and tantalizingly there were certain tools of her trade. A log fire had been lit. It was going to be cosy for a long while, once this misfit was extricated. ‘I’ve heard it’s a struggle getting your orders out on time. Didn’t that boy of yours work fast enough for you? Anyway, it isn’t I who wants you here.’
Darius raised his glass of rum to Titus. ‘Well, my friend. It’s good to see you again. People think you should have got the rope, but I was happy to speak up, behind the scenes, for the man whom I forgave for poaching on my land while he tried to save my Jeffrey.’
‘God bless you, sir.’ Titus reached out and clinked his tankard of ale against the glass. Then he glared at Morton and held him in his sight.
‘Please,’ Morton pleaded, frightened at being here with such ruthless men. ‘Can we get on? I’ve just buried my son. I shouldn’t stay too long away from my wife.’
‘Nor would I if I’d married she!’ Titus howled lustfully, making a lewd gesture. ‘What the hell did a fine piece like her see in you? Daughter of a mine agent, wasn’t she? You was only a mine carpenter back then. You’ve put on airs and graces since you’ve had your own little concern.’ He lifted his leg on the table and pointed to his booted foot, rolling his dark eyes in mock ecstasy. ‘What would your prim woman think, eh, if she knew you had a certain fetish?’
‘We’re not here to discuss Lewarne’s appetites,’ Darius said, growing impatient, although the discovery, three years ago, that Morton Lewarne occasionally frequented the nefarious Wayfarer’s Inn for wenching never failed to please him. Subsequently, Darius had ordered all carpentry work required at Poltraze be given to Morton Lewarne. Lewarne never dared to ask for payment, he knew it would end with his wife becoming aware of his infidelity. It was part of the reason he had pressing money worries.
Titus returned to the enjoyment of watching Morton squirm. ‘I hear you’re soon to be a father again, Morton. I never saw your son. Mama Tempest and Sol speak well of him. Your daughter’s a worthy little piece. Got spirit in her.’
‘You’ve met Amy?’ Morton leaned accusingly across the scratched planked table. His moment of attack was halted by a fierce look from Titus. Damn the man! Why couldn’t he have died in prison? He’d survived the deprivation and diseases that stalked Bodmin gaol as if he’d never been incarcerated.
Darius joined in the onslaught simply for the fun of it. ‘My son, Joshua, was much taken with the girl’s dignity when they found your son’s body. He would have paid his respects at the funeral if it hadn’t been held in the Methodist chapel.’
‘My wife and my daughter are none of your business, either of you.’ Morton called up some courage for the honour of his womenfolk. Both these men trampled over every consideration of women.
‘Your business is my business, I’m making it so,’ Titus said, alert, looming.
Morton’s top lip became wet with nerves. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the way I see it, Morton.’ Titus was deceptively genial, then turned swiftly to hardness. ‘You need help in your workshop and I’m going to send you some.’
‘Y–you are? W–why? Who?’
‘I had a lot of time to think while I was locked up. Times are changing. Life is becoming more settled. Copper’s doing well and more mines are being sunk. Meryen is expanding all the time. I don’t consider it’s good for my family to stay quite so isolated any more. It’s time the Kivells branched out and that’s exactly what we’re planning to do. Your tragic circumstance has given me an idea. There’s no need for you to root an apprentice out of the workhouse. I’ve got a highly trained craftsman just perfect for your business.’
‘You have?’ Morton could hardly get the words out past his tight throat. ‘Who?’
‘My son. Sol.’
‘Your son! B–b–but why? No Kivell has worked for anyone outside your community before. Your son could set up his own business.’
‘True enough, and he’s been trained by a better craftsman than you, my cousin Laketon, who’s doing very nicely. But I think it would help if Sol gained some experience with someone else who’s recognized and respected in the trade. He can start tomorrow.’
‘I–I’ll have to think about it.’ Morton was appalled and it showed in every thin quivering inch of him. ‘My wife wouldn’t care for a . . . newcomer so soon after Toby . . .’ Sweat streamed down Morton’s back, every nerve in his body was at screaming point. He’d nearly said Sylvia wouldn’t care for a Kivell in his employment. Titus would have felt insulted and he would have given him a beating. He was in the worst fix of his life. Sylvia was barely speaking to him. She would never forgive him for allowing this. He’d never be able to face the rest of Meryen again.
Titus placed a hand on the table, not loudly, not with force, but it made Morton jump and cower. He was smirking, enjoying his prey and victim game. He glanced at Darius to see if he was listening. Darius was puffing on a cigar, staring from man to man with incredulity. Titus went on as if he was closing a business agreement in the best of lawyers’ offices. ‘He won’t be bound to you. No one binds a Kivell. You’ll pay him treble what you gave Toby on account of his advanced skill. Meals to be included and he’s to take as many breaks and to come and go as he pleases.’
Morton looked as if he was about to choke. He tugged at his necktie.
‘Don’t look so worried, man!’ Titus roared with mocking jollity. ‘Sol’s quick and he takes pains with detail. He was chiselling and hammering on bits of wood from the age of three. He’ll build up the reputation of your business, get it back on course.’ He spat on his meaty, hairy hand. ‘Let’s shake on it.’
Morton was like a rat cornered by a wolfhound. He was petrified in his chair. Until Titus banged his fist on the table, making the tankard and glass leap and slop drink. A cry of fear strangled and died in Morton’s throat. It took the greatest will for him to make his hand reach across the table. It shook as Titus took it in a mighty grip and nearly crushed his fingers.
‘Well, that’s settled. Now you can bugger off! Whisper to Nellie to send up some bootleg brandy. Tell her that Mr Nankervis and I are ready for the women. Oh, and Morton, you be good to my boy. He’s mine and Mama Tempest’s favourite. If you’re frightened of being on the wrong side of me, you’d come off even worse against my mother! She’ll ill-wish you.’
Shaking from head to toe, on legs like boards, Morton shuffled to the door as if he had suddenly gained thirty years and advanced rheumatism. He shut the ill-fitting door after him with a meek lowering of the wonky iron latch.
‘Did you hear that door squeak?’ Titus cried out maliciously, loud enough for Morton to hear, while grinning at Darius. ‘Should have got him to put a drop of oil on it.’
Stunned at the interchange, Darius did not take in that last spiteful jest. He drew on his cigar and let out a plume of smoke. ‘Do you really want this arrangement for your son?’
‘Course not.’ Titus’s lips curled in disgust. ‘Sol has every intention to travel and see the world, but it won’t hurt him to do this for me first. What I want is Lewarne’s business. Having Sol there will grind him down and it won’t take long to get Lewarne to agree to sell up for a song. My cousin Laketon’s got his eye on the business. I hate him, he’s an insidious loner, doesn’t study the family at all, just his own needs, and that offends me mortally. He can buy it off me for a higher price. It will all be fun. I want Sol to make gutless Lewarne sweat out every moment. I hate the hypocrite. It’s come to my ears that he’s had a lot to say about me and my family over the years. He hoped I’d get the noose. Now the villagers will soon see the true measure of him. I’ll make sure they know about his double standards.’
‘If your family are to become respectable businessmen as you want, they’ll have to calm down.’
‘They will,’ T
itus said confidently. ‘It’s what Mama Tempest’s wanted for years, and some of the younger ones realize they won’t go far if they’re always courting strife. Not that I’ve got any intention of changing myself.’ Titus was one Kivell who hadn’t taken up a craft or a trade. He preferred to make his living by arranging bare-knuckle fighting, cock-fighting, smuggling runs and by other criminal means. He was reflective for a moment. ‘You’ve been busy making changes too. You’ve taken your wife back. I’m surprised at that.’
‘She won’t be at Poltraze for long. I’ve brought her back for a purpose. After that, I’ll soon have her consigned to the asylum.’
They drank on in a friendly manner, although Titus and Darius didn’t trust each other at all.
Seven
Wearing a straw sunhat, and with her black skirt hitched up in her apron strings, Amy was pulling carrots and potatoes from the vegetable patch. She straightened up before her basket was full. She couldn’t pinpoint it but there was something different, something strange, about the day. Sometimes, when the winds were soughing across the moors they seemed to sing in mournful notes, as if some lost soul was lamenting its fate. Or it might be still and quiet, and she’d fancy an ancient tribesperson, of the earliest people who’d roamed the hills, was whispering a secret and no matter how hard she listened her human ear could not distinguish it. Occasionally, on dark days, the moors seemed to press in all around her, and in odd uneasy moments Amy would feel an intruder in the wildness of nature.
There was no sense of anything of the kind today but she gazed about anyway. There was reason to be cautious. Of late, things had been stolen in the village, the blame put on newcomers. The sky was the palest of blues, the clouds light and cottony and slow-moving. All seemed in order in the garden. The hens were scratching contentedly behind their wire-netting run. At the bottom the stream flowed undisturbed, its path encroached on only by the stepping stones. Close by, stretched out and sleeping on the wooden bench was the cat, Floss. The sleek tabby sparred most days with Stumpy. Stumpy, who’d followed along after Amy for the last few days, had deserted her today, making her feel the loss of Toby even more. That must be it. She was feeling even more empty, there was more bruising to her heart. She’d have to get used to the fact that life was never going to be the same.
She finished her task quickly, eager to go back inside to her mother, who seemed to be growing weaker every day in her grief. She had fretted at not being to able attend Toby’s funeral. ‘I’ve not been able to say a proper goodbye to my son yet,’ Sylvia had sobbed from her bed. ‘It’s all your father’s fault. Move his things out of here! He can sleep in the spare room from now on. I can’t bear him near me. I can’t bear the sight of him.’
Such a course would have been unthinkable before, but Toby’s death had changed that. Sylvia had not a scrap of respect left for Morton. He had argued, shouted for a while, but had accepted Sylvia’s wishes. ‘You’re not much use to me at the moment anyway,’ he’d barked. Amy had felt no sympathy for him over the banishment, rather, she was beginning to loathe him, and that was an awful feeling.
She made her way towards the house. She stopped on the path and stared at the workshop and listened. Her father spent almost every waking minute in there now. Today he was even busier. That was the difference. There was so much more activity. Even in the early morning, during the migration of workers past the house to the mine, there had been something unusual. A horse. No one in Meryen could afford a horse on which to ride to work. It could have been a stable groom or one of the gentlemen from the big house riding this way for some reason. Mr Joshua Nankervis perhaps. She had wondered if he’d call again after the day he’d turned up when Tara was here. She hoped he would not. He had been kind, but it was embarrassing not knowing what to say to him and how to behave. Now she realized that her father seemed to be dashing from tool to tool. He had behaved strangely this morning, talking to himself, which she’d never known before. Instead of waiting for her to bring him his morning tea and biscuits he had come to the kitchen and asked for two mugs of tea and double the amount of food, saying he had a terrible hunger and thirst today. It was a lie! He had someone with him. He’d taken on an apprentice and hadn’t bothered to inform her or her mother. Dropping the basket on the ground she strode off to the workshop.
The long stone building on the far side of the garden, flanked by a wood store and a stable for Morton’s pair of workhorses and covered cart, boasted a large sign in Morton’s own hand: Morton Lewarne Esq. Master Carpenter & Cabinet Maker. He could have Undertaker on it too and increase his business but he was too faint-hearted to deal with dead bodies. ‘You’re not much of a man, Father,’ Amy said to herself.
The double doors were open. Wood dust hung in the air, caught in a shaft of sunlight. The workbench ran on three sides of the wall. Her father was in his usual place, just inside, where most light was gained, with his back to her. He was cutting mitred dovetails for a flush-top cabinet, his head down and shoulders hunched up, his breathing loud and tense. The sight of his companion, at the other end of the workshop, made the next breath gag in her throat. Side on to her, at the bench, Toby’s bench, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, concentration plain on his powerful dark profile, was the towering figure of Sol Kivell. Stumpy was sitting companionably at his feet on the uneven, sawdust strewn, pressed-earth floor.
‘What’s going on?’ She stared from one man to the other.
Morton went rigid with shock. He turned his head round as if his thin neck was on a rusty ratchet.
Sol only had to glance sideways to see her. He kept on sanding the rails of a small square table, the last piece Toby had been working on. From the evidence of the large leather bag on the end of the bench he was using his own tools.
Amy marched up to him. His black hair tumbled across half his face, which looked set in stone. ‘Father.’ She pointed a finger at Sol. ‘What’s he doing here?’
Morton swallowed, twisted his hands in his leather apron and hung his head. He was not master of his domain now.
‘Is someone going to tell me? Explain, for goodness sake!’ She was getting angrier by the second over the silence and the way Sol Kivell was ignoring her. She was obviously as unimportant to him as a speck of sawdust. He was making a habit of intruding into her family’s life. Apparently, he was now terrorizing her father – he’d not be here otherwise. But why? It didn’t make sense.
Sol studied his work, as if it were the only issue of the moment. ‘You really are the biggest of cowards, Morton,’ he said, his eyes not leaving his work.
‘Don’t you speak to my father like that! What are you doing here?’ Amy wanted to push him all the way out of the workshop and then push him over, watch him hit the hard stony ground outside with a loud thump. No one had produced such an aggressive need in her before.
Pushing the hair back off his brow in a lazy movement, Sol finally looked at her. He swept his brazen eyes up and down her, giving her a smile that was at first amused then full of contempt. It made Amy recoil.
‘Amy, go away,’ Morton said, red-faced and pleading. He seemed like a man suddenly shrivelled with old age. ‘I’ll explain . . .’ He hesitated when Sol swung round to watch him. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Is he threatening you?’ Her father might have turned to wood pulp but she wasn’t about to let Sol Kivell hold sway here.
‘No! No, he isn’t. It’s complicated. Amy, do what you’re told!’ Morton snapped.
‘No, I won’t. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m not just going to leave things as they are. If he doesn’t leave right now I’ll go in and tell Mother.’ It wouldn’t have been a feasible threat before but she knew her father was keen to regain her mother’s esteem. She was popular in Meryen and he was not. If folk discovered he had been thrown out of his own bedroom he would be ridiculed.
‘Don’t do that! No, Amy, please. I don’t want her upset.’
Amy was appalled at how pathetic he was.
&
nbsp; ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Sol said, drawing out papers and a leather tobacco pouch from his trouser pocket. ‘Am I, Morton? Not until I want to, that is. What time’s dinner? I take it we’ll eat in the house, at the table, all nice and proper. What are we having, Amy?’
‘I’m Miss Lewarne to you!’ Amy realized she was shouting at the top of her voice. She rubbed at her brow. This was getting out of hand. Now she was being bullied and tormented by Sol Kivell and he was enjoying every moment of it, but not in a humorous way. It unsettled her like nothing had before. How could Toby, so timid and naive, have befriended this man?
Her face on fire, she made for the doors.
‘Wait!’ Morton wailed, beating her to them. ‘I’ll tell your mother.’ He crept away, bowed over, to the house.
There was no way Amy was going to stay here alone with the infiltrator. She went to retrieve the vegetable basket. She looked back at the workshop. Sol had come outside and was leaning against the high natural bank of moorland that gave shelter to the back of the building. He was smoking, one foot crossed casually in front of the other. He inclined his head to her, a distinct sign of one-upmanship.
In the kitchen, Amy winced as she heard her mother’s angry and distraught cries. When Morton propelled himself through the room moments later he ignored her and kicked Floss, who was slinking indoors, out of his way.
‘Mother! What are you doing?’ Amy exclaimed when she went up to Sylvia. Sylvia was getting dressed, her face as hard as hoar frost.
‘We’re to suffer even more because of your father’s spinelessness.’ In a dry, bitter tone, Sylvia repeated the words of the arrangement made by Titus Kivell. ‘Your father says he’s under some kind of obligation to him. I will not abide in my bed while that young rebel flouts himself in my home.’
Downstairs, Sylvia sat in the rocking chair at the kitchen hearth, one hand resting on her swollen belly. Amy fetched a footstool for her. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. Why are they doing this? The Kivells? Why does Titus want his son to work here? Why is Sol going along with it? He doesn’t obey his father in everything.’
